"Now, now," the colonel said, turning the switch off. He pushed a small tea wagon over to Clarey. "You must be starving. Have some sandwiches and coffee. I'm sure you'll be glad to taste good Earth food again." "Yes, indeed," Clarey said, trying not to make a face. "Er--shouldn't we start recording while everything's fresh in my mind?" "Might as well," the colonel said, flipping the switch again. "Pity we don't have a probe here. Would save so much time. But, of course, it's an expensive installation. All right, Clarey, over to you." * * * * * Clarey choked on a mouthful of sandwich and hesitated. "Begin with your very first impressions," the colonel urged. "Well, the archives--the library--was in a real mess. Took me over two weeks to get it in even roughly decent shape. Three different systems of classification and, added to that--" "Not so much the library, old chap. Leave the technical stuff for later. What I meant was your first impressions of the natives.... Is something wrong with the coffee? And you've hardly touched your sandwich. Maybe you'd like another kind. I have several varieties here--ham and cheese and--" "Oh, no," Clarey protested. "The one I have is fine. It's just that I'm--well, to tell you the truth," he confessed, "I've grown accustomed to Damorlant food." "Don't see how you could," the colonel said. "Nauseating stuff--to my way of thinking," he added politely. He opened a sandwich and inspected the filling. "You've only eaten at public places. Even the better restaurants don't put themselves out for Earthmen, say they have no--palates, I guess the word would be. But you ought to taste my landlady's cooking!" "All this is being taped, you know. They'll have to listen to every word on Earth." "If only I could convey the true picture through words. Her ragouts are rhapsodies, her soufflés symphonies--I'm using rough Terrestrial equivalents, of course--" "The cuisine comes later, please. Over-all impressions first." "Well," Clarey began again, "at first I was a bit surprised that you'd stuck me in a quarter-credit place like Katund. Naturally in a village the people'd be more backward than in the cities, so you'd have a poorer idea of how they were developing. Then I realized that you couldn't help putting me there, that you probably couldn't write a letter good enough to get me a job in any of the big centers. Embelsira said she was surprised to find me so much more literate than she would have expected from the letter." The colonel sat erect huffily. "I've never pretended to be a philologist. And, anyway, Damorlan isn't like Earth. Here the heartbeat of the planet is in its villages." "Earth hasn't any villages, so the comparison doesn't apply." Clarey cleared his throat. "Don't you have anything to drink except coffee?" "Tea?" "That would be better. Do you know the Katundi have a special variety of tea, or something very like it, which is--"